Tag: President Obama

And one of them is his former Chief of Staff, Mr. Carl S. Redding (pictured with him above). In another article written by Redding and circling the internet, the man who was once considered a mentor; is now being chastised and blasted by Redding for failing to uphold his loyalty to ‘the cause’ he was once so passionate about.

In Redding’s article, he mentions the lawsuit Sharpton is named in by media mogul Byron Allen. He also recalls when Obama ran in 2008, how Sharpton failed to endorse the democratic candidate in favor of Hilary Clinton instead. Yet Sharpton has managed to rise in Obama’s good graces with access to the oval office.

Redding’s article is entitled “The Epic Failure of Al Sharpton towards the African American Community” By Carl Redding…If you recall Redding penned an “open letter” to Sharpton a couple of months back.

The recent lawsuit filed by media mogul Byron Allen against Comcast and the Reverend Al Sharpton, is telling for a number of critical reasons. Allen correctly asserts that Sharpton has done very little to use his visible platform as host of the MSNBC prime-time show Politics Nation, to advocate for African-Americans as a whole. Nor has Sharpton advocated for the hiring of other African-American hosts to join him on the popular network. This was the main criticism of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) in 2011, who publicly protested when it was announced that Sharpton had taken the job that a respected Black journalist should have gotten in the first place.

That’s a shame, because for years, Sharpton has argued that more Blacks should have access to the public airwaves. I believe that Allen’s lawsuit will finally expose Sharpton for the whole world to see.

As mainstream media continues to hail Sharpton’s rise to prominence as a metamorphosis or reinvention, it’s clear that he operates as a one-man show whose focus is squarely on Al Sharpton. I should know. I spent eight plus years as the chief of staff for National Action Network, the organization that I helped him to create in 1991. I traveled the country and the world with him and was a trusted advisor. In the beginning, I was a believer who was firmly committed to his cause and the cause for civil rights. But over time, it became obviously clear to me that Sharpton was no Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who used his public platform to advocate for a change in the laws.

Just name one case over the past two decades where Sharpton’s activism has brought about systemic change? In fact, on most of the police brutality cases in recent years where African Americans were senselessly gunned down by overzealous officers, Sharpton’s involvement has resulted in a grand jury refusing to indict the officers.

In the case of Akai Gurley in New York, where the family deliberately requested that Sharpton stay away, a grand jury swiftly indicted the police officer who shot the young, unarmed Black man. It appears that Sharpton’s absence brought about a victory for this grieving family. This example alone shows that among Black folks, Sharpton’s support, which was once strong in the 1980s and 1990s, has since diminished greatly.

Though his public persona has been strengthened by his access to President Obama and the White House, he has not properly leveraged this relationship to benefit Blacks as a whole. Can you imagine Dr. King gloating over visiting Lyndon B. Johnson in the White House? Or rejoicing over the opportunity to be invited to the White House to watch a Super bowl game? Absolutely not! King went to the White House with one focus in mind: to push Johnson to pass the Civil Rights Bill and the Voting Rights Act.

That’s why we march in Selma on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday and it’s why Oprah Winfrey and Ava DuVernay rightly produced Selma, which accurately chronicles King’s fight for racial equality. Sharpton, who claims to be in the King tradition, has been grossly ineffective in helping to groom a generation of activists who will come after he and the likes of Reverend Jesse Jackson, to continue the long and important fight for social justice.

With Obama in the White House and Eric Holder in the Justice Department, Sharpton has squandered the opportunity to push the White House and Congress to enact any meaningful legislation. In fact, I recall that during the 2008 election, his support for the President came during the last days of the campaign. Although I and a number of prominent politicians backed Obama, Sharpton refused to endorse him and suggested that his chances for winning the White House were slim to none. “Rev, I’m going with Obama,” I explicitly told Sharpton in 2008. His response was deeply frustrating. “You gotta be out of your fucking mind if you think Black folks and people in America are going to vote for a nigger with a Muslim name Barack Obama. You need to support Hillary Clinton, who is your sitting U.S. Senator from New York because you’ve got to work with her when she becomes President.”

Today, Sharpton claims to have been with Obama from the beginning, but if you check the record, his criticism of the former Illinois Senator was harsh and demeaning.

Black folks deserve more from those who claim to be public servants. At a time when the prison industrial system continues to incarcerate young Black men, it’s sad that neither Sharpton, Holder nor Obama have addressed this very issue. This crisis is very personal for me because my very own brother currently sits in a Utah prison cell, for up to five years, for a non-violent crime. Sadly, Obama uses Sharpton as his personal pit bull to silence any Black criticism directed his way.

With the lack of Black and Browns on television—as anchors, producers, writers and owners—Allen’s grievance is all the more important because he is speaking truth to power.

In a multi-billion dollar industry, Allen is shedding light on the viciousness of white supremacy, where Blacks are handpicked to remain silent for a few pieces of silver. For Sharpton, this has become a regular trend.

Last October, he sold out the Black community yet again when he published a book with Cash Money Records which promotes senseless violence and misogyny against African Americans in general, and Black women in particular.

At the time, I urged Sharpton to give back the blood money and apologize for his wrongdoing. He didn’t listen to me, but maybe he’s listening now that he has to answer to a lawsuit filed by a credible and respected Black entrepreneur.

What do you think? Is Redding’s gripe legit? Sound off here and feel free to share.

We have a humanitarian crisis at our border, and the White House is making matters worse with inattention and mixed signals. It is telling, and sad, that a senior White House official is focused on political games, rather than helping these kids and securing the border.

Impeachment is a 2 stage process. The first step involves a hearing to rule on the criminal charges. The 2nd step involves removal from office which requires a majority vote. The last president to be impeached was Bill Clinton in 1998. But the Senate did not have enough votes to remove Clinton from office.

If Obama’s Impeachment is successful, he would be the first biracial/mixed president to be impeached in presidential history.

A partial list of namesof the 223 Nigerian schoolgirls still in captivity has been released. The girls were kidnapped from their beds at a boarding school 3 weeks ago by armed Boko Haram militants. The Boko Haram leader hastaken responsibility for the kidnappingsand claims he sold the girls as sex slaves for as little as $12 each.

President Obama has since taken action by sending in arm forces to aid in the search for these girls. In the meantime social media have been up in arms demonstrating active roles in the protest.

Pictured below is my young cousin, a Sophomore at Morgan State University and she’s asking “Every One to Please Post A Picture Doing The Same Thing I’m Doing Using The Same Caption (Instead Of ‪#‎MorganCares‬ You Can Say‪#‎ICare‬). We Need These 234 Nigerian Girls FOUND!”

Did you watch President Obama’s state of the union address last night? I was back and forth with it between “the have’s and the have not’s”.

Word was already OUT and all in the media how President Barack Obama said “he was going to start overriding congress on executive orders to get the sagging economy moving”. Obama is tired of being disrespected and tired of talking to these cry baby ass republicans, so now he’s warned them all publicly that; he’s got a pen and telephone and will start moving things along without them.

The president is tired of negotiating and trying to be fair while the republican’s and congress hold the American people hostage because of their own hatred, prejudices and political agenda’s.

Besides, it’s not as if congress listens to the President’s demands he lays out during the State of the Union address anyway. Last year, only two of his requests were fulfilled by the least productive congress in history, pushing Obama to enact more executive orders without congress’ approval.

Enough is enough!

Now his attitude is “fuck it” I’m the president, it’s time to make shit happen on my own!

Pictured above is Stephanie George and she was sentenced by a judge to life in prison all because her boyfriend was a dope dealer and hid his crack in her attic without her knowledge. Even though the judge in Stephanie’s case agreed that she had nothing to do with her boyfriend’s activities, he still took this mother of three away from her kids for the remainder of her natural life. She was just 27 years old at the time.

“Even though you have been involved in drugs and drug dealing,” Judge Vinson told Ms. George, “your role has basically been as a girlfriend and bag holder and money holder but not actively involved in the drug dealing, so certainly in my judgment it does not warrant a life sentence.” Yet he still imparted such a harsh sentencing.

Now at 42 years old, President Barack Obama pardoned eight people who were serving “unnecessarily lengthy sentences,” and Stephanie George was one of them.

Stephanie George, Clarence Aaron, Ezell Gilbert, and Reynolds Wintersmith were among those pardoned. All eight cases involved crack cocaine sentences, which have been under increasing criticism for being too harsh, including from Obama.

Obama said in a statement that the eight men and women were sentenced in what is now known as an “unfair system,” including the stark disparity between crack and powder cocaine offenses that typically saw black people sentenced to life in prison for crack, while white people got off with light or no sentences for powder at all.

President Obama today gave several Americans who were unnecessarily sentenced to die behind bars the chance to reunite with their families. This is one important step toward undoing the damage that extreme sentencing has done to so many in our criminal justice system. We hope the President will continue to exercise his clemency powers and lend his support to systemic reform that will make our criminal justice system smarter, fairer, and more humane.